This thread is for celebrating the life, work, and career of Adam Lambert before American Idol for fans who love Pre-Idol Adam and for the new fans just discovering the awesomeness that is Adam. I saw someone still asking about the preIdol performances so this thread is a quick AdamLambert101. Post any PreIdol pic/interviews/etc.

“He was going to be one of Barbara Walters’ 12 Most Fascinating People of 2009, and I was like, ‘Oh s--t, I worked with that guy on a cruise ship, like, 10 years ago.’ He was my next-door neighbour on the A-deck. He was the singer in the cheesy musical and I was taking care of kids in a youth program, doing summer jobs.”

Oh, how things have changed.

According to the Toronto Sun, Woodley is a "singer-guitarist Warren Spicer" and a member of "Montreal indie pop-rock trio Plants and Animals".

I made a mistake, Woodley is a drummer Matthew (Woody or The Woodman) Woodley, haven't read the article correctly.

I wanted to start a rock band in Southern California. You could be playing all over the place, and be playing every week. You should be able to live off of that technically. You can go from San Diego to Las Vegas; you can drive, play, have a really good band, and have a big following, especially if you get together a supergroup. That's why I wanted to make a supergroup of superstars from local groups, so I used to play these local shows in LA. With The Zodiac Show, you play on the first Saturday of every month. One month would be David Bowie, another would be Prince, and so on. Everybody dresses up like some part of that musician's career, and plays David Bowie songs or whatever. You have different singers for every song, and some of these singers are some of the best singers that I've ever heard. I said to a friend "Look, I wanna start a rock band. Who's the best singer in LA you know of that I can start a band with?". He said "You gotta try Adam - you two guys would be perfect".

I looked around and tried to find him, but I didn't have any luck. I was then doing a Zodiac performance, and Lee Cherry - who puts on The Zodiac Show - knew that I wanted to meet up with Adam. He had Adam come in to do a song, and when Adam came in for a soundcheck rehearsal, his voice just filled the room. I just thought "Wow". Then afterwards, we talked. I said "You're really good. I think you're the guy that everybody is telling me about". He replied "Oh yeah? I think you're the guy that everybody is telling me about who wants to start a band", and said "I wanna start a band". We just started writing. Tommy Victor, who plays guitar and sings in Prong, was looking for a bassist at the time, and we made a deal. He said "Look, I'll play bass for your band if you'll play bass for my band", so that's how that happened. That led to me doing Prong's 'Power of the Damager' album, which is now looked at as being one of the best Prong albums. We then got Steve Sidelnyk, Madonna's drummer who's now with Seal, to play drums.

Because we all had gigs with other bands, it was hard to get everybody together to play a show. What I would do is write a song, and send it to Adam. Adam would put vocals on it, and then we would all send the song to each other. Everybody would learn it, and we'd maybe do one rehearsal where we just ran through the songs. We'd then get shows booked and just play the shows. Everybody was good enough where they could just come in and do the show, and it didn't have to be perfect because whatever we did, we got around it. We tried, tried and tried - we tried to do something with it. Even with having connections, it's still hard. Adam was also in 'Wicked', the musical production / theatre play, and then Adam said he was gonna go on 'American Idol'. I remember saying to him "Go on 'American Idol'", and I know a lot of his friends were telling him that too. He eventually decided he was gonna go after he went to the Burning Man festival in Nevada (laughs). And so he went. We all knew, all his friends knew, that once he went on that show, that would be it. Now he's a superstar. We just played in Singapore last week, and Sony presented him with a Gold plaque, a Gold record. Also, I've put out my own album, an acoustic album called 'The Deepest Dark'. Instead of releasing it through a record label, I put it out myself on CD Baby and iTunes. I'm my own boss. 'The Deepest Dark' is already better than any album I've ever worked on, and is the greatest thing I've ever been involved in. I did an acoustic album because with The Citizen Vein, we'd have to call around everybody, and by the time everyone got back to one another, the venue had already filled that spot. I'd write stuff, and Tommy would go out with Prong sometimes with and sometimes without me - he also plays with Danzig, and played with Ministry. Adam would then have to go away for a few weeks to appear in 'Wicked' in another city, so I thought "I'm gonna go back to the whole reason why I wanted to start a band". I decided to make the first album acoustic because it's just me (laughs). I don't have to call anybody else to do a gig, and that's turning out to be really beneficial.

OMG! There are several songs here that I've never heard Adam singing! I'm going to have me a lovely Sunday listening through these! Thanks so much for starting this thread, B.Jewel.D! Newbie *and* established fans (I carefully avoided calling us Oldies!) are going to love this!